Threat of Week-long Strike Looms Over BHP Queensland Mine

Workers in BHP Billiton's (ASX: BHP) Queensland coal mines will hold a week-long strike likely to begin Friday to protest the latest enterprise agreement offer by the mining giant. The workers, members of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), are against some of the pay and work condition provisions of BHP's offer.

Stephen Pearce, district vice president of CFMEU, said the union members voted to reject the offer on Feb 3, but they have not set an exact date when would the work stoppage start. About 3,500 BHP miners at the Bowen Basin in Queensland have held rolling strikes since June in protest over pay and work conditions. They suspended the industrial action in December to resume contract talks.

The union members cited large profits enjoyed by mining companies as their main reason behind their demand for higher salaries and better work conditions.

A single bargaining unit will determine the exact date of the worker strike which will hit all seven BHP mines in Bowen Basin.

Another union, the BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA), is resisting efforts by the miner to place restrictions on union influence at the mines. The BMA called on supervisors not included in the enterprise agreement to perform health and safety roles on a permanent basis. It also sought a third roster break on 12-hour night shifts, a limit on the use and payment of contractors and more preference in training for workers covered by the enterprise agreement.

BHP rejected the arrangement proposed by the unions.

"The company cannot, and will not, diminish its rights and obligations to manage the business, nor will we accept productivity-destroying arrangements as currently proposed by the unions.... Strike action will not change our position, as has been the case for the past eight months," BHP spokeswoman Kelly Quirke said in a statement.

Stephen Smyth, CFMEU district president, urged BHP to start listening to workers' gripes as they grow more frustrated since the current agreement had expired in May 2010. He disclosed that after BHP walked away from negotiations in 2010, a ballot made by the miner showed that 92 per cent of workers rejected the agreement.